[Kzyxtalk] Structural change 5% sign Petition

Wed Mar 22 09:14:11 PDT 2017

I love this!  Great cartoon - and how can I sign the petition?

Erif.

On 3/21/2017 6:46 PM, King Collins wrote:
> Hi Norman,
>
> Regarding the question of the 5% requirement.
>
> A petition would be passed around and signatures requested. There 
> would have to be 5% of the (approximately) 2200 (I think) current 
> members. That's 110 members. How would you tell if they were actually 
> members? Someone would have to check the membership list to certify 
> that each signature is a valid member.
>
> Verification of signatures could be done by the same (outside) agent 
> that does the ballot count. Or it could be done by members if they 
> could enforce their right to see the member list.
>
> Below is a petition (after the cartoon). I got thirty signatures at 
> the Ukiah Farmers Market in an hour, but those of us (Members For 
> Change) never agreed on the strategy of putting an Initiative on the 
> Ballot.
> http://greenmac.com/KZYX/KZYZ_cartoon6.pdf
>
> --king
>
>
> On Mar 21, 2017, at 5:54 PM, Norman de Vall wrote:
>
>> Organizations eventually have their own DNA.  You could change all 
>> the members
>> of the board and you wouldn’t see much change.  Same thing happens in 
>> Congress.
>> We’d have a more pro-active open board if the members were chosen at 
>> random
>> from the membership if they were willing to serve.  Sort of like the 
>> Grand Jury.
>>
>> The objective of most organizations is to maintain the status quo. 
>>  But like
>> people, they go through an aging process and if change does not happen
>> they will disappear.  Most businesses, public and private, over time 
>> have either
>> “re-structured” themselves, gone into bankruptcy, been merged, bought 
>> out,
>> or collapsed.  I once offered to share a book on this subject with the
>> then GM and was rudely rebuked.
>>
>>
>> How would you know if you’d met the 5% requirement?
>>
>>> On Mar 21, 2017, at 5:14 PM, John Sakowicz <sako4 at comcast.net 
>>> <mailto:sako4 at comcast.net>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> You have my vote, King.
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> *From: *"King Collins" <king at greenmac.com <mailto:king at greenmac.com>>
>>> *To: *"kzyxtalk" <kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org 
>>> <mailto:kzyxtalk at lists.mcn.org>>
>>> *Sent: *Tuesday, March 21, 2017 4:53:03 PM
>>> *Subject: *[Kzyxtalk] Structural change: Requre Board to Communicate 
>>> with        Members
>>>
>>> To KZYX Members and Board
>>>
>>> Re. Structural Change
>>>
>>> It seems to be very hard to get this across:
>>>
>>> Years of watching and recording events as KZYX board members come 
>>> and go, has convinced me that:
>>>
>>> It is not all that important which person is elected to the board, 
>>> whether that person is a person of good character and or appears to 
>>> be interested in the station. There have been many good people, and 
>>> I think of most of them as friends.
>>>
>>> All those on the board, with few exceptions, over the years have 
>>> been a good people, caring people, fine people. Yet somehow these 
>>> good people just flounder along, seldom ask the right questions and 
>>> go with whatever prevailing wind blows through the boardroom. And 
>>> the same centrist hierarchical wind has prevailed since KZYX was 
>>> founded by Sean Donavon, or certainly since the time I was on the board
>>>
>>> The only way that things will change in the direction of more 
>>> control by  the local membership, by the local people, is a 
>>> Structural Change in the way the board is organized. In particular 
>>> KZYX, which defines itself as a member controlled organization 
>>> should have a requirement, a structural requirement, a bylaw  that 
>>> REQUIRES board members to interact, frequently and regularly with 
>>> the members who elected them.
>>>
>>> That has never been tried in any serious way. If board members had 
>>> to present themselves, and their plans, not just once but regularly, 
>>> in front of the members, those with good ideas will have a chance, 
>>> and those who are weak or ineffective will reveal themselves.
>>>
>>> Whereas in the current process the board meets in secret and the 
>>> public never get to know what board members are like and how each 
>>> contributes to the discussion or even what is discussed. Who knows 
>>> what happened? Those who are weak and ineffective, or tired, or just 
>>> going along---may very well continue forever and nothing will 
>>> change, and indeed nothing has changed. (See The Secret Life of 
>>> KZYX, written in 2005, when I posited the existence of "Centrist" 
>>> and "Egalitarian" tendencies.)
>>>
>>> Act Of The Membership by means of a Ballot Initiative.
>>>
>>> For membership control, it comes down to how such structural change 
>>> can be accomplished. There are other ways than electing individual 
>>> board members. There is something called an Act Of The Membership, 
>>> which can be a Ballot Initiative, passed by a majority of the voting 
>>> members, establishing a new bylaw which to require the board to 
>>> interact directly with the membership (as specified in the bylaw, 
>>> perhaps a regular radio show, opening the closed board list serv, a 
>>> public email listserv, or other means).
>>>
>>> That would be a structural change that directly challenges the 
>>> current process of secret meetings, closed board listserv and very 
>>> infrequent board meetings with limited opportunity for public 
>>> interaction and refusal of board members to even answer questions 
>>> from the floor.
>>>
>>> For a Ballot Initiative To Require Board Members To Communicate 
>>> Regularly With Members
>>>
>>> --king collins
>>>
>>> P.S. The Ballot Initiative can be forced (to be put on the next 
>>> election ballot) by a petition signed by 5% of the members.
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>>
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